By Nadia Ranaputri
Director: F. Gary Gray
Cast: Chris Hemsworth, Tessa Thompson, Liam Neeson, Rebecca Ferguson, Kumail Nanjiani, Rafe Spall, Laurent Bourgeois, Larry Bourgeois, Emma Thompson.
The Men in Black franchise was never really something I was fully attached to back then. I did remember having a lot of fun with it, but I was so confused with all this weird alien mumbo jumbo. As the years went by, I was much more fond of it than I was when I first saw it. A talking alien puppy, a time-traveling Boglodite, an entire freaking galaxy in a small piece of jewerly, and just all out fun action? Men in Black has it all. Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones as Agents J and K were one of the most iconic duos to ever cross the screen, and without them, Men in Black would not have worked as well as it did. As bad as Men in Black II was, Smith and Jones really knew how to carry a film. Heck, even Josh Brolin as a younger Agent K had great screen chemistry with Smith in Men in Black III. It's a trilogy that you can simply have fun with, no matter how ridiculous the plot and all these aliens can get, there's that sense of energetic vibe that you can't help but just go along with. It was a memorable trilogy, and one with a pretty satisfying conclusion. That is until its spin-off, Men in Black: International, came into the picture.
Men in Black: International begins with a young Molly Wright, who sees her parents get neuralized by the Men in Black after encountering an alien in their house. Years later, adult Molly (played by Tessa Thompson) is an ambitious seeker of the Men in Black, constantly seeking out the organization that deals with things that are not from earth. When she does find herself in the MiB quarters, she is recruited, but not before she could prove her worth in her position as an MiB agent by working alongside their neighboring branch in London. There, she meets the infamous Agent H (Chris Hemsworth), an agent known for his heroic act with fellow MiB leader High T (Liam Neeson) of taking down a big alien threat with "nothing but their wits and their Series-7 de-atomizers," something the film makes clear multiple times. M gets paired on a mission with H, where they discover that another alien threat had come to earth to seek a powerful weapon that has the potential to destroy a whole planet. Together, M and H team up to stop this alien threat from taking this weapon and save the Earth from destruction.
In what could have been a standout and a fresh take on the Men in Black franchise, the film is an unfortunate mess, with plot-holes that could have been much easier to explain than Captain America's ending in Avengers: Endgame. The film has a habit of introducing plot points that have no resolution, and that it would rather move on to another plot point without the previous being resolved. The plot is a mess, with no sense of direction as to where it really wants to go. It's like little sidequests in a video game that have little to no use in propelling the main plot. It doesn't even give the characters room to breath and show some kind of development. Take the plot point regarding an alien death merchant played by Rebecca Ferguson that only serves as room for more fight scenes and wasted potential. However ridiculous or forgettable Men in Black III might be (I actually enjoyed it for what it is, to be honest), its plot points and the characters that come across Will Smith's Agent J and Tommy Lee Jones' Agent K, at least they all served a purpose one way or another, either as their ally or someone serving vital information for the mission (when else can you see Andy Warhol as an alien informant?) Point is, they propel the plot. Men in Black: International had none of those. Don't even get me started on the villains, even Boris the Animal from Men in Black III had better development than them.
Men in Black: International lacks that feeling of genuine comedic absurdity that made the first three Men in Black films highly enjoyable. Men in Black is memorable for how crazy they can be without having it feel forced. Remember the giant cockroach alien that tried to steal the "galaxy on Orion's belt", which turned out to be an entire galaxy lying on the collar of a cat named Orion? Or how Agent K defeated said villain by intentionally offering himself to be swallowed whole just so he could shoot the alien from the inside with his favorite gun? Those things are what made Men in Black so memorable. This new Men in Black just feels so...lifeless. Not that it has to go all out in order to sell itself, but it lacks that energetic vibe that the previous three films had (well, with the exception of Men in Black II, but that's just me). The thing is, it nailed the delivery of banter and jokes, thanks to the likes of Hemsworth and Thompson. The real issue is the script, the content of the banter and the jokes themselves. The jokes won't crack more than an eyeroll. It's not that they're terribly forced, they just didn't stick the landing. There's a running gag between Agent H and another fellow MiB agent about H being "papa's little boy" that just isn't funny and drags on for a good minute. Chris Hemsworth is a genuinely funny actor. He can nail a punchline when it's actually good. When you give Hemsworth comedy-worthy lines, you can work wonders with it. Thor: Ragnarok is a fine example of that.
For a film that surely requires exposition, however crazy it is, it seems much more content with exposition about what certain characters did rather than actually showing what they can do. Men in Black: International suffers the same curse as Captain Marvel: characters who are told to have certain traits but lack the physical evidence from the characters themselves to prove it. In other words, they're much more focused on the tell than show. In Men in Black: International, we're told countless times that High T and Agent H defeated a big alien threat years ago. Due to this, Agent H is deemed a hero, and other than his triumph at defeating said great alien threat, he's regarded as one of the best agents in the London branch. But we don't get to see this great agent. Instead, we get a cocky agent who apparently didn't see that a high ranking Jabbabian alien is in danger of assassination until it's too late (even after the alien literally warned him in clear desperation). Either it's him taking the "Jabbabians like to have good time" rule too literally, or that he's gotten drunk off-screen. And because story likes to sometimes jump ahead before anything is resolved, we don't get to see much of the character development. The first Men in Black worked because we got to see the development between Agent J and Agent K. Their development as individual characters and with each other was what made their dynamic work.
Men in Black: International could have been a game-changer to the MiB franchise, unfortunately it's easily forgettable. Sure, it has its moments and at the very least, you can have fun with it. Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson are the perfect buddy cop comedy duo, and they could have fit right in when they're armed with a good script. Sadly, their dynamic wavers because of the messy plot and flat jokes. They're one of the very few aspects that made the film watchable. I quite liked the scene where Thompson's character tried to convince her fellow employers that she would like to be in the division that deals with things from "up there", which led to one of her potential employers to say "you mean accounting?" It was silly, but I liked Thompson's delivery of it. They did what they could with the script, but even they couldn't bring in much energy if the script itself doesn't work in the first place. In the end, Men in Black: International is unfortunately forgettable. More than anything, it felt as it didn't try to do anything new to the story, which is why it failed to really make itself standout among the previous Men in Black films. However, it's definitely not boring. It can have fun when it wants to be, and sometimes it's unashamed of its ridiculousness. This is the type of film that you watch when nothing else is playing, and you just want to have a little fun. You'll get it here, for sure, but to say that it's reinventing the Men in Black franchise is a bit of a stretch, especially when it simply stands as just another Men in Black film, perhaps the least favored of the bunch.
Overall verdict: Despite the star power of Hemsworth and Thompson, Men in Black: International lacks that genuine energetic vibe that made the previous three films so enjoyable (except Men in Black II, it was just a really weird film for me). The story just didn't seem all that cohesive, especially when it spends much of its time jumping onward to different plot points before the previous one could be solved. It's as if a chapter in a school subject is being discussed, but before you could even fully understand it, the teacher moves to a completely new chapter without having even finished it. That's what Men in Black: International felt like. What's worse is that most of these plot points have no significant impact that propels the story. So what was the point of having all that just to lead up to nothing? Moreover, this Men in Black felt unusually lifeless, and the jokes fell completely flat. I couldn't really find one that I laughed at, maybe just smiled at the delivery of it, thanks to Hemwsorth and Thompson. And that was the problem: the delivery was perfect, but the joke itself wasn't. Hemsworth and Thompson are really the best aspects of the film, their chemistry was there, it's just the development that's lacking quite a bit. That's not to say Men in Black: International was fully lifeless to point that it bores you for the entire runtime, it does have its fun moments. You can forgive its faults as a Men in Black film, it just fails to stand out among them.
Stars: 2.5/5
 |
| Image source: IMDB |
Director: F. Gary Gray
Cast: Chris Hemsworth, Tessa Thompson, Liam Neeson, Rebecca Ferguson, Kumail Nanjiani, Rafe Spall, Laurent Bourgeois, Larry Bourgeois, Emma Thompson.
The Men in Black franchise was never really something I was fully attached to back then. I did remember having a lot of fun with it, but I was so confused with all this weird alien mumbo jumbo. As the years went by, I was much more fond of it than I was when I first saw it. A talking alien puppy, a time-traveling Boglodite, an entire freaking galaxy in a small piece of jewerly, and just all out fun action? Men in Black has it all. Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones as Agents J and K were one of the most iconic duos to ever cross the screen, and without them, Men in Black would not have worked as well as it did. As bad as Men in Black II was, Smith and Jones really knew how to carry a film. Heck, even Josh Brolin as a younger Agent K had great screen chemistry with Smith in Men in Black III. It's a trilogy that you can simply have fun with, no matter how ridiculous the plot and all these aliens can get, there's that sense of energetic vibe that you can't help but just go along with. It was a memorable trilogy, and one with a pretty satisfying conclusion. That is until its spin-off, Men in Black: International, came into the picture.
Men in Black: International begins with a young Molly Wright, who sees her parents get neuralized by the Men in Black after encountering an alien in their house. Years later, adult Molly (played by Tessa Thompson) is an ambitious seeker of the Men in Black, constantly seeking out the organization that deals with things that are not from earth. When she does find herself in the MiB quarters, she is recruited, but not before she could prove her worth in her position as an MiB agent by working alongside their neighboring branch in London. There, she meets the infamous Agent H (Chris Hemsworth), an agent known for his heroic act with fellow MiB leader High T (Liam Neeson) of taking down a big alien threat with "nothing but their wits and their Series-7 de-atomizers," something the film makes clear multiple times. M gets paired on a mission with H, where they discover that another alien threat had come to earth to seek a powerful weapon that has the potential to destroy a whole planet. Together, M and H team up to stop this alien threat from taking this weapon and save the Earth from destruction.
 |
| Image source: IMDB |
In what could have been a standout and a fresh take on the Men in Black franchise, the film is an unfortunate mess, with plot-holes that could have been much easier to explain than Captain America's ending in Avengers: Endgame. The film has a habit of introducing plot points that have no resolution, and that it would rather move on to another plot point without the previous being resolved. The plot is a mess, with no sense of direction as to where it really wants to go. It's like little sidequests in a video game that have little to no use in propelling the main plot. It doesn't even give the characters room to breath and show some kind of development. Take the plot point regarding an alien death merchant played by Rebecca Ferguson that only serves as room for more fight scenes and wasted potential. However ridiculous or forgettable Men in Black III might be (I actually enjoyed it for what it is, to be honest), its plot points and the characters that come across Will Smith's Agent J and Tommy Lee Jones' Agent K, at least they all served a purpose one way or another, either as their ally or someone serving vital information for the mission (when else can you see Andy Warhol as an alien informant?) Point is, they propel the plot. Men in Black: International had none of those. Don't even get me started on the villains, even Boris the Animal from Men in Black III had better development than them.
Men in Black: International lacks that feeling of genuine comedic absurdity that made the first three Men in Black films highly enjoyable. Men in Black is memorable for how crazy they can be without having it feel forced. Remember the giant cockroach alien that tried to steal the "galaxy on Orion's belt", which turned out to be an entire galaxy lying on the collar of a cat named Orion? Or how Agent K defeated said villain by intentionally offering himself to be swallowed whole just so he could shoot the alien from the inside with his favorite gun? Those things are what made Men in Black so memorable. This new Men in Black just feels so...lifeless. Not that it has to go all out in order to sell itself, but it lacks that energetic vibe that the previous three films had (well, with the exception of Men in Black II, but that's just me). The thing is, it nailed the delivery of banter and jokes, thanks to the likes of Hemsworth and Thompson. The real issue is the script, the content of the banter and the jokes themselves. The jokes won't crack more than an eyeroll. It's not that they're terribly forced, they just didn't stick the landing. There's a running gag between Agent H and another fellow MiB agent about H being "papa's little boy" that just isn't funny and drags on for a good minute. Chris Hemsworth is a genuinely funny actor. He can nail a punchline when it's actually good. When you give Hemsworth comedy-worthy lines, you can work wonders with it. Thor: Ragnarok is a fine example of that.
 |
| Image source: IMDB |
For a film that surely requires exposition, however crazy it is, it seems much more content with exposition about what certain characters did rather than actually showing what they can do. Men in Black: International suffers the same curse as Captain Marvel: characters who are told to have certain traits but lack the physical evidence from the characters themselves to prove it. In other words, they're much more focused on the tell than show. In Men in Black: International, we're told countless times that High T and Agent H defeated a big alien threat years ago. Due to this, Agent H is deemed a hero, and other than his triumph at defeating said great alien threat, he's regarded as one of the best agents in the London branch. But we don't get to see this great agent. Instead, we get a cocky agent who apparently didn't see that a high ranking Jabbabian alien is in danger of assassination until it's too late (even after the alien literally warned him in clear desperation). Either it's him taking the "Jabbabians like to have good time" rule too literally, or that he's gotten drunk off-screen. And because story likes to sometimes jump ahead before anything is resolved, we don't get to see much of the character development. The first Men in Black worked because we got to see the development between Agent J and Agent K. Their development as individual characters and with each other was what made their dynamic work.
Men in Black: International could have been a game-changer to the MiB franchise, unfortunately it's easily forgettable. Sure, it has its moments and at the very least, you can have fun with it. Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson are the perfect buddy cop comedy duo, and they could have fit right in when they're armed with a good script. Sadly, their dynamic wavers because of the messy plot and flat jokes. They're one of the very few aspects that made the film watchable. I quite liked the scene where Thompson's character tried to convince her fellow employers that she would like to be in the division that deals with things from "up there", which led to one of her potential employers to say "you mean accounting?" It was silly, but I liked Thompson's delivery of it. They did what they could with the script, but even they couldn't bring in much energy if the script itself doesn't work in the first place. In the end, Men in Black: International is unfortunately forgettable. More than anything, it felt as it didn't try to do anything new to the story, which is why it failed to really make itself standout among the previous Men in Black films. However, it's definitely not boring. It can have fun when it wants to be, and sometimes it's unashamed of its ridiculousness. This is the type of film that you watch when nothing else is playing, and you just want to have a little fun. You'll get it here, for sure, but to say that it's reinventing the Men in Black franchise is a bit of a stretch, especially when it simply stands as just another Men in Black film, perhaps the least favored of the bunch.
 |
| Image source: IMDB |
Overall verdict: Despite the star power of Hemsworth and Thompson, Men in Black: International lacks that genuine energetic vibe that made the previous three films so enjoyable (except Men in Black II, it was just a really weird film for me). The story just didn't seem all that cohesive, especially when it spends much of its time jumping onward to different plot points before the previous one could be solved. It's as if a chapter in a school subject is being discussed, but before you could even fully understand it, the teacher moves to a completely new chapter without having even finished it. That's what Men in Black: International felt like. What's worse is that most of these plot points have no significant impact that propels the story. So what was the point of having all that just to lead up to nothing? Moreover, this Men in Black felt unusually lifeless, and the jokes fell completely flat. I couldn't really find one that I laughed at, maybe just smiled at the delivery of it, thanks to Hemwsorth and Thompson. And that was the problem: the delivery was perfect, but the joke itself wasn't. Hemsworth and Thompson are really the best aspects of the film, their chemistry was there, it's just the development that's lacking quite a bit. That's not to say Men in Black: International was fully lifeless to point that it bores you for the entire runtime, it does have its fun moments. You can forgive its faults as a Men in Black film, it just fails to stand out among them.
Stars: 2.5/5
